Dan Barnes: Oilers game goes (almost) according to script

The script for this one was written Sunday by a furious Oiler head coach Todd McLellan.

His players, lest they be authors of their own demise, took his pointed words to heart and acted accordingly, more or less, scribbling a giant W all over the game sheet two days later. So, while the Carolina Hurricanes might have considered themselves central to the plot at Rogers Place on Tuesday — and defenceman Ron Hainsey did in fact score an own goal — the outcome was almost penned in advance of their arrival in Edmonton.

The Oilers survived two gaffe-filled minutes to start the game, scored two goals in the next eight minutes and survived a third-period, two-goal charge by Lee Stempniak to win 3-2. It wasn’t exactly clean, easy work, but a foray back into the win column nonetheless. And surely an improvement over the previous dreadful performance.

“That was a good response by our whole team tonight,” said goalie Cam Talbot, who came in under fire and had to have a big game. So too the team that looked so awful in front of him on Sunday.

“I think it was big on both fronts,” Talbot continued. “Personally, obviously I needed a big bounce-back game after the game I had last. And as a team I think that sometimes we let those losses kind of snowball in the past. Tonight we came out hard. We talked about being a tough, resilient group and a bounce-back group. And that’s what we came out with tonight.”

Yes, they rose to the occasion, and had little choice, such was the level of motivation on the Oiler bench, provided you may recall by McLellan, who was all kinds of livid on Sunday. His fire was stoked by a listless lineup that couldn’t string three passes together early, and wouldn’t pay even half the cover price necessary for a solid effort, never mind a victory over Buffalo. He was still smoking three hours later, when the score clock read 6-2 Sabres and he arrived at the post-game press conference with enough material to fill every notebook, column inch and minute of air time that awaited.

Edmonton Oilers’ goalie Cam Talbot (33) makes a save against the Carolina Hurricanes during first period NHL hockey action in Edmonton, Alta., on Tuesday October 18, 2016.AMBER BRACKEN /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

He carved the effort, or lack thereof. He carved winger Benoit Pouliot for two more dumb penalties. He pointed out Talbot’s obvious struggles with the puck but said a team owes its goalie a bailout now and then too.

Jordan Eberle, a goal-scorer (sort of) on Tuesday — he got credit for Hainsey’s miscue — said they haven’t been especially kind to their goalie.

“At the end of the day Cam was great and kept us in it and got us the win. It hasn’t been his fault, really. We’ve hung him out to dry on a lot of goals.”

Again, duly noted by McLellan. But my favourite portion of what was essentially a tirade may have baffled anyone born after 1980. McLellan had likened his team to the Bad News Bears. It was a deft tip of the ball cap to a 1976 movie about a fictional band of misfits, nay lovable losers, who forfeited their first Little League game, while trailing 26-0. They obviously couldn’t hit. Most could barely dress themselves or wipe their own noses, never mind catch or throw, but in true Hollywood fashion they were coached back to respectability and into the league championship game against the hated Yankees by an alcoholic former minor-leaguer played by the late, great Walter Matthau.

That these youngsters lost the final game and still celebrated with beer provided by their coach is just one of many ways the film spat in the eye of North America’s obsession with competition. And remember, this was long before political correctness reared its pointy head.

In this case, all the Bears really needed was sponsorship from Chico’s Bail Bonds and some tough love from Matthau, who took the job only begrudgingly.

McLellan, who had no such lingering misgivings about coaching his crew, eschewed tough love in the wake of such a stinkbomb. Instead, he and the team’s leadership group decided, together if you will, that they ought to scrap their legislated day off on Monday in favour of a practice heavy on the learning.

It was a teachable moment and the Oilers apparently grasped the necessary concepts and put them into practice against the Hurricanes. Talbot stopped everything for two periods and some tougher ones in the dying moments. Pouliot played 15 consecutive minutes without taking a minor penalty. They scored early in both the first and second periods.

Their professionalism surfaced. Or maybe they didn’t want to risk a reference from McLellan to the Kwik-E-Mart Gougers of Simpsons fame, or The Dog River Riverdogs from Corner Gas.

Whatever it took, it stuck, and that says they’re more responsive in the moment, and more likely to show the consistency necessary to climb out of the depths in which they have wallowed for too long.

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